


Catalyst

by jujubiest



Category: The Following
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, Gen, One-Shot, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is all Shawn Ashmore's fault. His fucking tears broke me, okay?</p>
    </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Shawn Ashmore's fault. His fucking tears broke me, okay?

Ryan knew what was going to happen the second Mike said it was his father's living room on the screen, and all he could do was watch in horror with the rest of them. He tried to get them to turn the video off, tried to spare Mike what little horror he could...but in the end all he could do was follow him out, sit on the cold cement steps and hold him while he cried like a child.

He had always thought of Mike as soft, as _good_...so much better than he ever was, or could ever hope to be. But somehow he never imagined this, the broken sounds as he gasped and sobbed around his grief, the way his whole body shook like a leaf in a storm.

The worst part, though, is the moment when the sounds start to quiet, when the tears begin to dry and Mike goes still and hard as stone beneath his hands. Because he knows, he _knows_. He's lived that transformation. There was nothing he could do to stop it in himself, and he knows there's precious little he can do for Mike now.

For him, the catalyst was Joe Carroll.

For Mike, he knows, it will be Lily Gray.


End file.
